Why Do Living Beings Die Despite Cellular Reproduction?

[transit442003]

i am a christian and for obvious reasons this wil affect my response to this sort of question but plaese bare with me. i believe that the human body was made to live but not to die but because of the genesis downfall of our sin our punishment is death but that is not it for me, i believe that there is a life beyond death, heaven and hell.

 

[z4955]

if the reason for life is to reproduce and to die after reproducing, why do people who never have kids die? If that were the case, you would live until you reproduce, or forfeit reproducing in order to live longer/forever? It doesn't work that way, as we all know.

 

[ravisastry]

genes

survival of genes is more important than the individual. i read this at the begininig of this thread. how true it seems to be :) what is the information that our genes carry.. I am sure it is much more than just defining the physical characteristics of the individual.

 

[ravisastry]

im not sure about the evolution theory. but i feel, we pass on something.. some kinda information to our future generation. this is just a speculation of mine, but its worth giving a thought. what do I care the most.. continuation of my dogs family or my friends family or mine ? everything boils down to the individuals interest. 'I' come before my species, ie humans. why is it so ? I'm confused and I am moving towards philosophy :)

 

[scott_alexsk]

There was an interesting thread I read before in which someone asked for the mechanism for restraining the growth of a cell population. I responded that the current mechanism for restraining the growth of cell populations is in the cell multiplying only when there is an excess of the resources, it needs to survive.

When life first started out, it did not have a mechanism for restraining such growth, therefore from growing so much, a cell population might wipe out its own resources, therefore killing itself. The mechanism with expanding only in excess resources may have also evolved with killing off parts of the population as to control resource consumption, which I believe Phobos mentioned earlier.
-scott

 

[mark1]

If cells can always reproduce and replace themselves then why do living beings die?

Living beings die due to the cumulative effects of years of free radical damage to the cells of the body.